


The Invisible

by ntldr



Series: The SARMA universe [7]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: youngling Hot Rod
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-06
Updated: 2017-02-06
Packaged: 2018-09-22 12:24:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9607487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ntldr/pseuds/ntldr
Summary: One does not need to be a ghost in order to haunt.Set in the SARMA comic series by greenapplefreek of deviantArt.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [the SARMA universe](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/250132) by greenapplefreak. 



> My half of a trade with the most wonderful greenapplefreak! You guys, She is amazing!

Freight ships had a nasty habit of shedding off material shortly after lift-off. Extra pounds of height-resistant plating that were worn-out and ready to detach, straps and buckles of towing equipment that hadn’t been tied down properly, and the accumulation of dirt and grime that built up on a long stay of any planet, all these were scraped off during a rapid ascent and floated away helplessly in a ship’s wake, to no concern of anyone but any smaller ships that might be directly behind it.

If enough of these freight ships lifted off regularly from a planet, they’d leave their mark across space: a line of trash, like residue in the gutter of a roadway, showing the frequent paths of travel. Locked into a tidal orbit, they’d stay together as one structure, like some weird, rusted metallic tree shooting out from the side of the planet.

It was when he spotted these long lines of space junk branching out from Centuri-2’s surface that Sunstreaker knew that he’d found the Autobot base.

 _Former_ Autobot base.

He narrowed his optics at the imagery on screen of the side of one of the departing freight ships, and the insignia adorning it.

_Decepticons._

Centuri-2 was the successful half of a binary planetoid system. It’s desolate, rust-colored twin, Centuri-1, would have been mistaken for a moon if it were not _bigger_ than Centuri-2, and the two of them were locked in an orbit around each other, kept from eventually crashing into one another by Centuri-1’s unstable core causing a wild magnetic field that pushed it away. Sunstreaker had wisely chosen to hide the cargo ship on Centuri-1’s dark side on their approach to the base. His intent at first was to make sure that the Autobots didn’t automatically target the clearly Decepticon-marked ship and blow him and Hot Rod to pieces on the last leg of their journey to find allies as they were trying to identify themselves. But unless all of the Autobots on base had gotten the same idea as him and were flying Decepticon ships to hide themselves within enemy territory, there were no longer any Autobots to be found in their own base.

Standing next to him with his arms crossed a little too tightly around his chestplate as he came to the same conclusion, Hot Rod stared at the image of the departing freight ship as well. “Have they spotted us?” he whispered.

“If they have, they haven’t tried to hail us.” Sunstreaker’s fingertips flew over the keyboard, and the freight ship was replaced with maps of the diagram of both planets and the former Autobot base. “Centuri-1’s unstable magnetic core makes it a cheap and powerful sensor shield for Centuri-2. It’s how the Autobots were able to maintain such a huge depot this far into disputed territory. Somehow the Decepticons found it anyway. But--”

“If we’re right next to Centuri-1, the Decepticons on Centuri-2 can’t scan us,” Hot Rod realized, glancing out the side window at the cratered, scarred, and _dead_ planet, a shocking comparison to the flourishing life Centuri-2 that was visible from space.

“Exactly.” 

The hologram of Centuri-2 was flattened into a topographical map, with the Autobot base highlighted as a blinking purple circle in the middle of an area with dense flora. Sunstreaker thought for a minute, then pointed at a section south and east of the base, and the map automatically noted it with a red circle. 

“We’ll land there, and hike the rest of the way towards the base.”

“Huh?”

Sunstreaker flicked his optics at Hot Rod. The youngling was only now looking away from Centuri-1’s surface.

“...There’s nothing there, Hot Rod. Centuri-1 doesn’t have an atmosphere to support organic life, and the magnetism from the core would mess with our internals without a ship to shield us. It’s just one giant signal scrambler now.”

“I was reading a thing about sensor ghosts the other day. Isn’t that where they come from?” He bounced lightly on his heels as the idea took hold in his cortex. “Is that a _planet_ full of sensor ghosts?!”

Sunstreaker huffed through his vents, and rubbed his palm on his head.

“‘Sensor ghosts’ are unexplained fluctuations on radar. Not actual ghosts.”

“So there _are_ real ghosts!”

“No, that’s not--Hot Rod, we don’t have time for this! Pay attention!”

“I am,” the youngling grumbled, though not without one more sidelong glance at the shadows of the planet next to them, as if daring something to pop out from one of the craters.

“We’re going to land here, and hike the rest of the way. If this is an active base, even if it’s only half as manned as it was with the Autobots, then landing a ship in the enemy’s own hangar bay is suicide.” He enlarged the topographical map of the base, and pointed to the hills and cliffs to the east. “They won’t have patrols running frequently on terrain like this. I’ll have you sitting up there on the high ground as my cover while I get inside and rig the base with explosives. I’ll blow them on our way back to the ship, and that’ll cover our exit, and disrupt any further Decepticon patrols in this sector.”

It wouldn’t get them any closer to finding Sideswipe, but would increase their chances of getting to the next viable base alive.

“Or I could go with you, and we could storm the base and then have our pick of supplies when we’re done.”

“...Hot Rod, leave the tactics to me, okay?”

Now it was Hot Rod’s turn to huff. “You’ve been telling me that I need to learn more about fighting hand-to-hand!”

“Yes, and that’s why we spar.”

“I could get better if I--”

“No. You’re my covering fire, _if_ I need it. That’s all.”

He noted with a quick pique of humor that Hot Rod was getting better at hiding his swears.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

When the last freight ship of the group sailed past Centuri-1, the cargo ship exited from where it had been hiding on the planet’s dark side and slipped down towards Centuri-2. It was guided far away from the ‘branches’ of space debris, not wanting to encounter another ship moving along the normal routes. The unstable magnetic field of the dead planet hid it from most sensors except visual, and it would be descending into the atmosphere long before the mechs with the best optics could spot it.

A few breems after it had left its hiding place, a second, smaller ship rocketed away from Centuri-1’s surface from inside a crevice, at the same place that Hot Rod had been looking previously, and also took advantage of the planet’s magnetic field as it silently trailed in the cargo ship’s wake, as invisible to the first ship as Centuri-2 was to them both.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The shadow that suddenly cast over the tops of the trees and through the leaves was not unlike that of a ship passing between the planet and its sun, and for a breem Sunstreaker’s battle programing thought it was just that and surged online. Hot Rod must have thought the same and then verified this when Sunstreaker’s stance went defensive, and he immediately moved behind the bigger mech with his rifle pointed at their left flank, the youngling ready to run away and find better cover if needed.

 _Pride_ tumbled around Sunstreaker’s spark before it was batted down by a grimmer logic. Hot Rod shouldn’t _need_ to be developing instincts like that at such a young age. But then again, it was part of what was keeping him alive, and he was getting good at it.

Sunstreaker been wrong about the shadow anyway, and he stood straight again and pointed up at the sky.

“False alarm. It’s not the Decepticons. Have you ever seen a partial eclipse before?”

Hot Rod followed the direction of the Autobot’s finger, and where the shadow was already starting to abate. The rifle was lowered as he raised his face towards the canopy and gasped.

“Whoa--”

High above them, Centuri-1, which looked less like a binary planet and more like an enormous red moon, was moving out from where it had partially obscured the light of the nearest star, and it continued to travel on through space. The quick decline of sunlight was barely noticed by the flora and fauna teeming all through Centuri-2; the buzzing and chirping coming all through the densely packed forest didn’t stop. Such drops into a momentary darkness must have been common.

The two mechs remained quiet, briefly awed by the rare phenomenon that was a regular part of life on binary planets. Sunstreaker moved his hand to shade his optics as he peered through the thick canopy high above them and tracked the speed of Centuri-1’s descent towards the horizon. His processor calculated that the next partial eclipse would occur in about two and a half joors, and with its current trajectory shifting it closer to the west, the next eclipse would be considerably longer.

Just about when they were due to arrive at the Decepticon base. Excellent.

He started forward through the dense underbrush again, the fallen twigs and smaller bushes crackling under his peds, but then he stopped when a smaller pair of footsteps didn’t automatically follow him.

“Hot Rod. Let’s go.”

“Look!”

He turned back. The orange youngling was waving his hand frantically at the edge of the cliff. Jolting, then transforming his own arm into a blaster, Sunstreaker crouched as Hot Rod was doing, and crept up behind him, the blaster aimed in the same direction that the youngling was pointing

Teaching Hot Rod how to fight on his own took priority whenever they sparred, but Sunstreaker had also been developing how they could work together whenever it would be safer to take Hot Rod with him than to leave him behind on the ship. While the youngling was gaining the skills of a marksman, he was still too fragile to risk taking a direct hit, and so Sunstreaker had toyed with both his battle programming and his instinct to shield the smaller mech until he had found the best way to cover him when they were both kneeling and shooting. If he slouched over Hot Rod, both of them had a fairly good sight of the battlefield and range of motion while Hot Rod was protected from retaliating fire, and if they needed to move quickly, Sunstreaker could easily grab the youngling and roll in any direction.

They’d practiced the maneuver until Hot Rod knew to instantly curl up if Sunstreaker pulled him in tightly, and be ready to pick a target again as soon as they were done rolling. It was one of Hot Rod’s favorite drills, despite the dire necessity of it, probably because it involved the two of them tumbling all over the practice room. 

“What?” Sunstreaker hissed as he snuck closer, his free hand on Hot Rod’s shoulder, ready to pull him back. “What do you see?”

“Look at _that!_ Look!”

Optics flickering as he tried to at first take in the whole space of the forest below the cliff, his HUD searched for movement, then narrowed down to one section of the field as he switched to zooming in on the location that Hot Rod was the most concerned with. Sunstreaker clenched his jaw. He’d assumed that the Decepticons wouldn’t patrol often on terrain with such thick flora. If he was wrong, and there was a chance that the enemy could accidentally fall upon their rear, then he would have to change their approach--

He spotted movement. He pulled his plating in tightly, expecting to have to move fast at any breem.

And then he frowned.

“...Hot Rod?”

The orange mech was grinning as he turned his face up to look at him. “Yeah?”

“That’s not a Decepticon.” He noted the four spindly and furry legs, the spotted coloring of its fur, which camouflaged it with the woods, and the way its neck extended so that it could nibble at the nearest low-hanging branches. “I don’t know what that is, but it’s not the enemy.”

“Yeah, I know. But it’s cute.”

Sunstreaker’s engine growled.

“We are _not_ taking it back with us.”

“But--”

“For the last time, _no pets!!_ And pay attention!”

“I was!” Hot Rod gestured again at the planet’s fauna as Sunstreaker huffed and stood back up with a quick bat at his shoulder. “‘The environment is the most valuable part of the battlefield,’ remember?! You told me that!”

“I also told you to _pay attention!_ That _thing_ is not going to walk along with us and stroll right into the Decepticon base and set up those bombs!”

Hot Rod grumbled as he scrambled up and followed him.

“I could ride it into--”

“Oh for Primus’s sake, _no!”_

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

It was at least another joor before they finally reached the hill where Sunstreaker was confident that Hot Rod would have a good view of his trek to the base while not being spotted himself. The youngling was panting by then, his fans clicked on in an attempt to rapidly cool himself after the long hike, and he was a little less rebellious over Sunstreaker’s decision to leave him behind as a sniper.

A little.

Sunstreaker helped him to unfold the tri-piece stand for the rifle to lay on while Hot Rod was laying on his belly, which would steady his aim and give him a further chance to rest. The feet dug into the ground as it was set down, and the gun fit into the top of the stand with a small _click._ As Sunstreaker was fitting the rifle with a long-range muzzle, the orange youngling stopped making his adjustments on his own end and glared at him.

“What if someone finds me?”

“Keep quiet, and they won’t.” Sunstreaker didn’t look up as he ran some calculations against the predicted wind speed and fixed how the rifle was sitting. “The only way you’d have better cover was if you were painted green. Use that to your advantage. If you need to fire, don’t let them figure out where it’s coming from.”

Hot Rod squinted an optic into the laser sight module. “And if they still do?”

“You already know the answer to that.” Sunstreaker still didn’t look at him as he stood up and observed the base below the hill: several landing pads surrounded by half a dozen building and a long fence. Nothing fancy for a depot, but it had been essential for the Autobots, and knocking it out would cripple the Decepticons in this sector. “Warn me, then run back to the ship, and put it in lock-down. I’ll join you as soon as I’m done taking down the enemy, but if I don’t return--”

“You’re not very good at being comforting.”

“You sound surprised. I’m _realistic.”_

Sunstreaker felt a scowl being directed his way. “Why isn’t there ever a “Hey Hot Rod, you’ll do great!”, or “You should test out how good you are with your knife and come with me!”, or “I’ll bring you back some energon goodies if you’re good!”, or “Nothing will never, ever get you, Hot Rod, because I’m here”? Isn’t that what normal younglings are supposed to get told?!”

 _Now_ Sunstreaker looked down at him. “Where did you hear that?” he murmured.

“I read it.”

The Autobot opened his mouth to ask him more, than stopped himself. Especially when he saw how tight and uncomfortable Hot Rod’s faceplates had become.

The books that they had ‘borrowed’ from Sigma’s facility. Most of them had worked well enough for teaching academics, but--

Sigma.

 _Frag the mech._

He still haunted the two of them, long after he’d been deactivated.

...Maybe Hot Rod hadn’t been that far wrong with being wary of ghosts. The past, even the recent past, had a nasty habit of catching up with Sunstreaker since his quest to find Sideswipe had begun.

But it wasn’t fair that Hot Rod was the one to suffer for it.

Still, to tell him things that decent guardians _should_ tell their younglings wasn’t in Sunstreaker’s programming, or at least not deep enough that he could do it with any measure of sincerity.

He thought a minute, then knelt down at Hot Rod’s side, and quieted his voice.

“I don’t need to be a normal, regular guardian like in one of your books because you’re not a normal, regular _youngling._ Most guardians don’t put their lives into their youngling’s hands. You understand?”

Hot Rod paused with his adjustments, and glanced up at him, his optics widening slightly.

But...he got it, even if he didn’t acknowledge it.

He had existed in Sunstreaker’s world for too long for him not to, and they both knew it.

Sunstreaker patted his shoulder. “Keep me covered. And for Primus’s sake, pay attention to your surroundings.”

And with that he was gone, sliding down the hill and through the foliage, delaying _that_ conversation for another day.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

There _were_ patrols. They stayed along the perimeter, not daring to break too far into the tree line or around the cliffs, but they were there.

Sunstreaker kept a cluster of knotted roots between him and the three mechs quietly walking up and down the closest side of the base’s perimeter fence. If he’d been alone, Sunstreaker would have pulled back and double-checked the security of the other walls, but doing so right now would remove him from Hot Rod’s line-of-sight, and then he would have no cover fire if things went ball-bearings up, or worse, Hot Rod would attempt to move to keep sight of him. 

Sunstreaker could easily take down one mech quietly. Maybe two. But three, without raising the alarm? That was a problem.

His internal comm crackled to life.

::Let me know when you want me to take a shot.::

::Not until I need you,:: Sunstreaker reminded him. ::It’ll be much easier if I can get in and out without anybody knowing that I was here.::

::So then what’s the plan?::

::For you to keep radio silence?:: he drawled.

The responding noise sounded rude, but he ignored it.

There were no spots in their patrol routes that took the guards close to a patch of underbrush where Sunstreaker might be able to snag one, then relocate to ambush the other two when they came to investigate. And the clearing between the forest and the nearest gate along the fence leading into the base was too far for him to make a run for it.

Pit, he might not be able to get _inside_ the base, even if all of the guards were silently disabled. He didn’t know what exactly were in these buildings, and if the Decepticons had wiped out the Autobots guarding it, then he had to assume that someone competent was in charge this time and would have posted guards _inside_ too.

He would have to make an external bomb rigging, then, and hope that if it didn’t destroy the base, at least it would cause so much of a distraction and panic that the Decepticons would think that they were under attack from a larger group of Autobots and flee.

But he still had to get rid of those guards before he could set up the rig.

Inexplicably, the nearest gate breezed open and closed, as if a mech had wanted to come outside but then changed his mind. As the guards briefly looked away at this anomaly, Sunstreaker reassessed his situation, and taking his own advice, checked his environment--

Another one of those fauna _things_ was chewing on a patch of shrubbery nearby, one optic on the guards, but not having a reason to fear them. Throughout the woods were more of them. A herd.

An idea lit up in Sunstreaker’s cortex. His spark was humored by it. His processor was not.

Hot Rod was never going to let him hear the end of this.

He ducked down lower and crawled towards indigenous creature, knowing that Hot Rod was likely watching him through the rifle’s scope the entire time. The creature continued chewing, though it glanced at him briefly, as if wondering if he were predatory or wanted to share in the delicious, bushy leaves.

While the guards were still distracted, he reached out and smacked the creature’s aft, hard.

The creature shrieked. Then it bolted, straight out into the clearing, its tail held upright in alarm, the bright coloring on its underside the opposite of camouflage and a warning to its companions of danger.

Immediately all the other creatures nearby fled as well, making a _natural_ cacophony.

The guards jolted as something leapt out of the trees at them and then veered away, the creature no longer chancing any trust in two-legged mechs, followed by the brays and wails of others of its species running for a hiding place. One of the Decepticons, the nearest one to Sunstreaker, laughed and pointed at how the other two were startled by this, and the furthest one briefly gave chase after the first creature, trying to make sure that it didn’t come back and interfere with their patrol again.

Sunstreaker burst out of his hiding place too, momentarily running alongside part of the herd, and took advantage of the mistake of the the nearest, laughing one. The Decepticon thought that his foot-falls were that of another indigenous creature running along nearby.

He was still laughing as he turned his optics on the golden mech charging for him.

Sunstreaker stabbed his knife into the mech’s belly, knocking the air out of his vocalizer and throwing him to the side, and he didn’t stop to see him offline as he kept running at the next one, only to barrel into him as shifted, knocking them both to the ground and pinning his weight on top of the Decepticon before he could realize what had happened.

It only took a quick wrench at his head to finish him off before he cried out.

The third one was wrapping up his short chase of the planet’s fauna back into the woods. As he started to turn around to rejoin the patrol, Sunstreaker sprinted right at him.

As soon as he was at his top speed, energon pumping through his lines, the golden mech knew that he wouldn’t reach him in time.

The Decepticon gasped.

He lifted his arm up to speak into his comm-link.

Before he could say a word, he fell to the side, momentarily lifted off of his feet by the force of energy slamming into the side of his helm from somewhere high on the hill.

Sunstreaker skidded to a halt in front of the now-deactivated body, and reassessed his situation. 

Three dead mechs. No other patrols. 

No alarm.

The woods went silent and still as the fauna ran away, and he was left alone.

...Good.

He turned towards the hill, and gave it a sloppy, two-fingered salute, before jogging towards the gate and the nearest building instead, the bomb rigging pulled from his subspace pocket and into his hand as he went.

As he ducked through the gate, the day suddenly darkened into night. He glanced up towards the sun, and Centuri-1. The rust-colored twin planet was hovering over him, like the red eye of some giant that had been observing Sunstreaker’s progress.

The planet’s eclipse would give him more cover for a few breems.

Even better. Pit, he couldn’t have asked for a more perfect set-up to rig the explosives.

::I still think I’d be more useful down there with you.::

Sunstreaker pursed his lips as he crouched down beside one of the buildings, next to where he knew an internal support would be, and began to set the first bomb.

::You’re ‘more useful’ where I tell you to be.:: Borrowing a wad of Flexi-plex from his first-aid kit in a different pocket, he slapped it against the wall, then glued on the rig. ::And keep radio silence. The point of a sniper is to be the back-up who is away from danger.::

For a breem or two, Hot Rod seemed to be listening to him.

...And in hindsight, Sunstreaker should have been suspicious about that. He was focusing on making sure the right wire went into the right port when he heard Hot Rod’s voice again. The youngling sounded startled.

::Yeahhh--about that--::

The radio suddenly crackled and whined, making Sunstreaker wince at the feedback shrieking through his audial before it automatically dialed itself down.

::Hot Rod?::

The Autobot stopped what he was doing and pressed a finger to the comm unit, making sure that it hadn’t simply become disconnected from the receiver. He pinged the unit that Hot Rod was wearing, and received an automated ping back from the unit itself, but the radio continued to hiss and crackle.

::Hot Rod? Can you hear me?::

Nothing answered him but white noise.

Sunstreaker frowned, and tried a different frequency.

Still no answer.

This was too _perfect_ for him to have to run back to the youngling and show him how to reset a commlink. Grimacing at the half-finished bomb set-up, he calculated how much time he could spare if he did so, and his HUD displayed the result. If he left, he would not return before the eclipse ended.

...What if Hot Rod’s comm was being blocked by a jammer on the base? If that was true, then someone had noticed Sunstreaker, and an attack was imminent. But no alarm was being raised.

Or it could be as simple and plausible as a youngling accidentally disabling the comm unit.

Sunstreaker keyed up the original channel and tried again.

::Hot Rod! Respond!::

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Hot Rod hissed through his dentals and tried to work his wrists free, but the cables around his arms and wrists refused to give. He wiggled his fingers, trying to find the knot, but the mech had known what he was doing and placed it nowhere near his hands.

Sunstreaker was going to be _so_ mad.

It wasn’t even like he had done something stupid. He’d stayed _exactly_ where Sunstreaker had told him to, and had done a good job of covering him from the third Decepticon who was about to call for help. At the same time he’d kept an audial on the woods around him, wary of any patrols that the two of them had missed. The shadow washing over Centuri-2 by its twin planet further hid the youngling, and he was confident that he was safe.

When he’d heard the hum of a blaster right behind his helm, his spark had nearly leapt right out of its casing. He was in the worst position: laying on the ground on his belly, facing away, his rifle locked into a tripod stand and unable to be swung around for defense.

That didn’t stop him from trying. The tripod’s destroyed feet were testaments to how fast he’d tried to rip it out of the ground to whip the gun around.

The other mech had been faster.

And now he sat cross-legged on the ground, glaring up at the mech who had tied him up, who had a hand on one blue hip as he studied the youngling with a curious grin. He wasn’t aiming the blaster at him anymore, thank Primus. But he didn’t have to. Not when Hot Rod’s rifle was sitting several meters away, far from his reach.

All the while Hot Rod had been frantically trying to raise Sunstreaker on their comms, but all he was receiving back was white noise. He wasn’t even sure that the Autobot had even heard his first warning that someone had found his hiding place. And if Sunstreaker was expecting him to keep radio silence, how long would it be before he discovered that something was wrong?!

“There’s no need to be so grumpy.” 

The mech’s tone was oddly quiet and cool, but also teasing. There was no chance that he was mistaking him for a minibot; he knew what he’d found. His tone and dialect reminded him of Sigma’s rank as a noblemech, and Hot Rod bristled further at the memory.

The blue mech ignored the warning growl coming from Hot Rod’s engine and continued. “I just want some information. For example, what is a young one like you doing in this place?”

Hot Rod shrugged, or the best that he could manage with his arms bound. “Oh, you know,” he sighed, as if he were just as relaxed as the mech was. “The usual. Recharging in the sun, enjoying nature--”

He bowed his head forward slightly and muttered under his breath.

“--stalling--”

The blue mech must have had excellent audio receptors. He refreshed his optics, then cocked his head slightly to the left.

“Stalling? For what?”

Hot Rod’s cortex started to cook up a witty response to that. But before the idea could leave his mouth, someone else stole the spotlight.

The bushes just behind the blue mech exploded outwards, and he suddenly found himself with a curved, glowing knife at his throat, and a charging blaster pressed against his torso. The time it took for him to gasp used up the tiny window from where he could have escaped, and now as he found himself pinned between two weapons of a _very_ angry Sunstreaker, he raised his palms in surrender.

“--Oh.”

 _“I WAS PAYING ATTENTION, I FRAGGING SWEAR!”_ Hot Rod screamed at Sunstreaker before he could get a word in. He was _not_ getting in trouble for this one, especially when he had been on alert specifically for other Decepticon patrols!

Surprisingly, Sunstreaker’s tone was not scolding at all. “I believe you. But this is a mech that few can take by surprise.” He adjusted his grip on the knife threatening to slice open the mech’s vital energon lines. “Hello, Mirage.”

Hot Rod’s jaw hung as he stared at them. 

“...You know this guy--?!”

Mirage, meanwhile...grinned.

“Oh! First a baby-bot, and now you!” he chirped. “This day is full of surprises!”

“I’m not a--!”

“How did you find us, Mirage?” Despite him recognizing the blue mech, Sunstreaker had made no move to show that he would release him. “Have you been following us?”

“Only since you passed Centuri-1.” Mirage kept his hands raised as he held up a finger. “Though it must have been your trail that I’ve been on the past half a vorn. You’ve been leaving a wake of destruction and making the Decepticons in this sector nervous, and I wanted to see what sort of ally we had on our side. I assumed that you were some rogue Wrecker. Then,” he crooked the same finger at Hot Rod, “I saw this little button using a rifle like he was a big-bot. I was about to interview him.”

Sunstreaker studied the back of Mirage’s helm, as if he could see right into his cortex and determine if he was lying or not. He contemplated what the mech had said, and then--

Released him.

Hot Rod’s jaw slid open further. “The fragger snuck up on me and tied me up!” he protested as Sunstreaker approached him, knife still out to cut through his bonds, while Mirage huffed through his vents and rubbed the side of his neck where the knife had been held. “How do you know that he’s not a Decepticon?!”

Sunstreaker grabbed his shoulder to hold him still, then sliced through the cables around his arms, then his wrists. “Are you hurt?” he asked as he helped him to his feet.

“No…”

“Then stop complaining.”

The rifle was shoved into his hands, and Sunstreaker stalked back to Mirage, whose eye ridges were raised up high at the golden Autobot and youngling. 

“Yours?”

Sunstreaker snorted. “Of course not. It’s a long story.” Around them, the forest suddenly brightened, and he glared up at the sky as the partial eclipse ended. “Slag. And there goes my cover.”

“No worries.” Mirage’s smile returned, and he pulled a small, single-buttoned device from his subspace pocket. “Looks like you had the same idea that I did. I had figured that if you were a Wrecker, you would have forgotten about this part.”

Still baffled by Sunstreaker’s change in demeanor towards someone who fit every definition as an _enemy,_ and more than a little irritated that both mechs seemed to have forgotten about him, Hot Rod stormed up to them. “Forgot _what_ part?” he demanded.

“I was in the middle of setting up my own,” Sunstreaker said, still ignoring the youngling. “But if you’ve got yours down, there’s no reason to stay here anymore.”

“I agree. You wouldn’t have room on that cargo ship to haul my own, would you? It’s a one-seat pod.”

The golden mech shrugged. “Why not?”

 _“What?!”_ Hot Rod tugged at Sunstreaker’s arm with his free hand. “He can’t come with us! _He jumped me and tied me up!”_

“He was keeping you from doing something stupid.” Sunstreaker shook him off. “Mirage is an Autobot too, Hot Rod. I’ve known him for vorns. He’s coming with us.”

“But...but…!!”

“By the way, did you really need to block out Hot Rod’s comms back there?” Sunstreaker scowled at Mirage. “Or did you think he might have somehow been a Decepticon?”

Mirage’s smile faded.

“...I haven’t been blocking anyone’s comms...”

Both Autobots stared at each other in the optics for a beat.

The forest around them suddenly seemed _too_ quiet.

Hot Rod heard a hissed swear from Sunstreaker, and then his feet left the ground as the mech grabbed him.

“MOVE!!”

Mirage turned on his heel and ran with him, and right where they had been just been standing, the ground exploded. Dirt and debris pelted their backs, and the two Autobots kept running, not stopping as more swears echoed through the woods that were _not_ from Sunstreaker, followed by the hum of blasters being charged.

Mirage vaulted over a fallen log, turned briefly to return fire at the nearest Decepticon hiding in the underbrush, then kept running. “I was sure that I wasn’t followed out of the base!”

“It wasn’t you, they were following _me!”_ Sunstreaker dodged around the same tree’s rotted stump and put Hot Rod down so that he could join the fire-fight. “I thought that the eclipse would give me enough cover to run back up here to check on Hot Rod! Sons of glitches must have seen me!”

“May I suggest a change in paintjob for your next subterfuge mission?”

The blue Autobot had double-backed to assist Sunstreaker, and the golden mech had time to give him an appalled look.

“Don’t even joke!”

Hot Rod’s rifle was swatted away before he could pull it out and aim it.

“Forget about that thing! Transform, and get back to the ship! We’ll be right behind you!”

“You’re not--”

“Go!”

Sunstreaker gave the youngling a hard shove in the opposite direction, and Hot Rod stumbled for a few steps across the grass and leaves before he twisted and transformed into his vehicle mode. Once his wheels found purchase, he took off, and part of his spark lit up in relief when two more sounds of transformation echoed behind him once the Decepticons had been forced back down.

Sunstreaker and Mirage weren’t sticking around to end the fight. Good. He hated it when Sunstreaker made him run away when he could have provided an extra gun.

But what was going to stop the Decepticons from following and boarding the ship too?!

He didn’t have time to process that. Explosions from blaster fire were ripping through the forest around them, and then suddenly Sunstreaker’s vehicle mode was right on his bumper, shielding the smaller mech and encouraging him to go even faster. Mirage’s engine roared as he skidded around an outcropping and came up at Hot Rod’s side, also protecting him from any of the Decepticons’ good shots.

Something snapped high above them. There was a groan, and a crash, and then Mirage was shoving Hot Rod to one side. Hot Rod’s wheels squealed as he changed direction. He was nudged further, and he was just about to shove Mirage back when part of a tree slammed down on the route where he’d just been traveling seconds before.

Mirage continued to herd him along the right path to dodge pieces of the trees that were coming down, and Sunstreaker stayed right on both of their tails. A lucky shot hit the Autobot’s bumper, and he swore venomously, but stayed where he was in the formation so that no more had a chance to hit Hot Rod.

“They’re following!” he called out as the blaster fire was replaced by even more engines.

“They won’t be shortly. Just a little further…”

The three of them took a hard turn around a cliff, and Hot Rod didn’t have time to admire the view of the valley bellow as they sped along, trying to put as much distance between them and the Decepticons as possible. He could hear them too, charging along the cleared path, intent on hunting down the intruders.

It didn’t take long before Mirage was satisfied that they’d gone far enough.

He broke away from the formation, and transformed again, flipping in midair and landing on his feet. One hand touched the ground to balance himself as momentum carried him a little further, and his other hand dug into his subspace pocket.

“And that is enough of that.”

He thumbed the button.

Instantly Hot Rod understood why Sunstreaker and Mirage had wanted to get so far from the Decepticons.

The ground shook wildly, and Hot Rod yelped as his he tipped over on his side and went skidding along the grass. Sunstreaker’s larger form weathered the explosion better, and he rumbled up next to the smaller mech, guarding him as the youngling righted himself.

A burst of light lit up on the horizon, followed by pieces of the base rocketing away in different directions.

When the shaking stopped, the three of them heard the Decepticon engines again.

...Decepticon engines heading _away_ from them.

Mirage waited a moment longer to make sure that there were no stragglers, then straightened up and put his hands on his hips.

“Clear. Though we may want to take our exit before they realize that there isn’t a larger team attacking their base.”

“I agree.” Sunstreaker pushed at Hot Rod to get him moving again. “Back to the ship. Our work here is done.”

Hot Rod wiggled back and forth, trying to shake off some of the grass that had gotten stuck in his plating. “We’re not going to stay and finish them off?”

“No. Mirage did plenty of damage to the base. They’ll either abandon it, or waste their own resources trying to repair it.”

Mirage had changed back to his vehicle mode, and he came upon them as they turned back to the path towards their ship, still moving quickly, but no longer as frantically ad before. “Is your little button always this vicious?” he asked Sunstreaker. “Or is he still upset that I surprised him?”

“Both,” Sunstreaker muttered, then took the lead, showing them the best route back to their ship, the two Autobots naturally boxing the youngling into the safest spot between them as they drove on.

“...We don’t have any room for him on the ship,” Hot Rod announced.

“Of course we do,” Sunstreaker immediately retorted. “It’s not like the rest of those rooms are being used for a crew.”

“ _I’m_ the crew. And I say I’m using all of the rooms we have!”

“We can put your rocks in the memorabilia room.”

“Memorabilia room?” Mirage asked with a dry cackle, and Hot Rod didn’t hear the rest of what he said as he launched into a long, angry tirade about the difference between rocks and collectibles.

**Author's Note:**

> [THIS TOO AAAAAA](http://greenapplefreak.deviantart.com/art/hello-Bob-661034530)


End file.
